A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,115
endlessly, a constant state of cold in the middle of empty space. A small, though very real light radiates from afar. I can’t remember why I’m here or why it’s there, but I propel myself toward the beacon anyway, curious. The closer I get, the more real everything feels; the more I remember. My lips grow hot, and my chest constricts.
Once engulfed by the light, I awaken with a start and take a hungry and impatient breath, reopening my eyes into the blurred, hazel-green ones of Castrel, whose lips hurriedly retreat from mine. I can still feel the warmth.
Castrel grabs both sides of my face as he cries. “You’re alive... I can’t… I can’t believe it. Everyone, she’s breathing.”
Talks and cheers echo about the confined space. Long planked walls, satin and carpeted sitting areas, a centerpiece sitting atop immaculate wooden floors; we are in a chariot and—by the feel of it—moving. Ceti rushes over to me and smothers me with an embrace.
“You are safe, darling. We are all safe.”
“Where are they? Where’s Zein?” My voice is nothing but a strained whisper.
“They won’t be able to find us. I’ve placed an invisibility spell on the chariot and we are making headway for New Avignon. Don’t you worry.”
New Avignon…
Glera, who sits in a corner to the left, smiles at me and gives me a deep and respectful nod. Thelor—hovering nearby—pats Castrel on the back. It’s the right corner that nearly makes me die all over again. Savvy and Katarii are curled up together beneath a blanket, staring at me with mild concern on their faces. Savvy had been crying, as told by the red craters in her face. But now both she and Katarii rip me a new one with their glares. I suppose I will have to explain later.
I turn back to Castrel.
“What happened to...,” my mind freezes a moment. “...to Zein?”
A frown appears on Castrel’s face, but he answers me. “He’s still alive, but Ceti managed to bind him and his underlings with enough spells so that they couldn’t follow us. We have the right vampire on our side. Ceti’s one of Cain’s few remaining underground purebloods. Without her, we would have been dead.”
Ceti’s lips stretch into that long, immodest smile of hers. A bit awestruck, I admire her features. What could a pureblood’s motivation for helping humans possibly be?
“I’m not so sure,” Thelor counters. “Zein should have been able to kill Wavorly in an instant. But he didn’t. He hesitated.”
Castrel’s frown deepens but he agrees.
He needed to kill me if he wanted to do what was best for the vampire race.
“Why didn’t he?” I say, staring into the spiraling ceiling. Still dizzy. “Why didn’t he kill me?”
I suddenly remember the last three words he said to me, and I frown.
Castrel blinks a couple of times and shrugs.
“Who knows,” Glera says after no one takes the initiative to answer. “There’s no use dwelling on it. Perhaps he thinks you’re still salvageable alive.”
“Maybe,” I scoff.
I’m not that stupid, and I know for a fact that Zein isn’t that stupid. He chose not to kill me, despite that being his last option.
“I cannot lose you. And for no other reason except…”
I close my eyes and push the final memory of him out of my mind.
“...that I love you.”
Zein is a liar.
✽✽✽
Minutes pass like hours while I numbly watch the sun rise over the land of Cain. It’s especially promising this morning, uninterrupted by walls or boundaries, but I can’t appreciate it. All around me is tension. All within me is regret. My life is starting over. Everything about this dawning day is new. A new purpose. A new reality. And only one thing remains unchanged.
Zein, the murderous vampire who slew my family and deceived me, still exists in every thought, in every breath, and in every beat of my heart. He remains as a blaring and vivid motivation for me to come back and finish what I started—to drain his life for the people of Avignon; to repay him for this cursed “love” that he weaved so expertly into his lies.
Zein will regret not killing me on this day.
That, I will see to myself.
THE END
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A Crimson Truth
Read on for a sneak peek into the next Chronicle of Avignon.
Wavorly
The cold in my fingertips can’t even compare to that of the ground. Sharp and weaving, the hardened tips of grass scrape my ankles like flyaway shrapnel, reminding me of a time I had long thought dead. Sometimes, at Nightingale, I would step out barefoot in the early hours of a twelfth month’s morning—December, as the town and my parents used to call it. I held tightly to my love of that month, in all its white-covered sadness and starvation, only because it brought along with it my birthday—a day that used to mean something.
“Happy birthday,” I would mumble to myself, letting the cold slice through my sheer, crimson tunic, through my skin—straight to my core. Back then I would do whatever I could to feel alleviated. The harsh, outside world could take my mind off of the war raging inside.
But now… grating cold is nothing but grating cold, even after everything that happened.
Does that mean I’m stronger now?
The decadence of endless, evergreen pines beneath the rays of a cloud-covered sky is a sight I would usually kill for. What I did kill for. So, why do I feel nothing—see nothing—but cold?
I kick away the frost with my toes, curling them up as if the bottom of my feet could offer any real amount of heat. I frown at the earth below. Had it been that long since my days at Nightingale? Since I would stand barefoot and freezing, sucking in the air that foretold of snow at the expense of my numbing feet? Had I been coddled so much by my time in—
I shake my head, holding fast to the truth. I’ve never been coddled. I’ve only been manipulated. I must remember that.
Zein
He stood at the window, peering down at the night-stricken Capitol of Isshar. Blue flames danced outside the doors of the public—their allegiance to Reginald written in the faint light, along the black-bricked walls, and scurrying up the iron posts in the streets. Some of the flames, however, emanated a bright crimson; ruby, even. The color that all in Cain had come to know as belonging to him, the youngest general and council member of the Stratocracy. His lip curled as disgust coated his fangs. Clearly, those few vampires who dared side with him believed that his actions were somehow for the greater good of their race—that the heir apparent completing her prophetic role was the natural cycle that kept the universe balanced; that kept their food from running out; that eliminated all other, immortal competition for it… even if they, themselves might be sacrificed in the process. For his life, they were with him, but for his cause, they were against.
As much pride as he had in himself, Zein was not ignorant. Every reasonable vampire in Cain believed that he had let the heir go, and yet… someone like him would have never done such a thing.
What happened? He had asked himself then. In the moment of truth, he had hesitated. Everything he worked for—proved himself for—had come crashing down in that second of lost connection. And for what reason? Surely, not because he loved her? He grimaced. That bleak and unrewarding concept was beneath him, a tool at his disposal to better restrain the heir and her vulnerable humanity. Zein exhaled sharply.
Yet the insinuation was ever-present, ensnaring his thoughts, and wreaking havoc in his heart.
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